Insights & Analysis on the Private Capital Market

The Prime Unicorn Index Announces Quarterly Reconstitution

The Prime Unicorn Index, the first index to track the share price performance of privately-funded U.S. companies, today announces its quarterly reconstitution. The index, which gives equal-weighting to its constituents, has added nine companies that qualify as Unicorns or Approaching Unicorns to its previous list of 85 privately funded companies.

With investor appetite for companies that have not yet made their shares available via IPO soaring, companies that have surpassed $1 billion valuations are given Unicorn status, while companies that have achieved $500 million valuations are classified as Approaching Unicorns in the Prime Unicorn Index. Reconstitution of the index relies heavily on Lagniappe Labs’ proprietary research and difficult-to-source, objective data to determine true valuations of privately-funded companies in a measurable and verifiable way.

“The Prime Unicorn Index serves to benchmark the performance of private companies in line with how the S&P 500 Index tracks publicly traded companies,” noted Barrett. “We are excited to be the primary resource for investors and help them better understand how to assign the true valuation of private companies as they look to go public.”

The new constituents join the index’s well-known companies, including Uber, WeWork and AirBnB. The newly added components are market leaders in technology, software and healthcare and all have excellent investor bases.

“Taken as a whole the Prime Unicorn Index achieved a positive return of 9.3% in 2017 and provides a unique way for institutional investors to access the private markets, whether they want to go long or short,” added Barrett.

The Prime Unicorn Index is an equally-weighted price return index that measures the share price performance of U.S. private companies valued at $500 million or more. The Index was launched by Lagniappe Labs and Level ETF Ventures. The index uses Lagniappe Labs’ proprietary research and difficult-to-source, objective data to determine true valuations for privately-funded companies in a measurable and verifiable way.